Lipsyte does spend much of the column praising what Grantland was
and how they did it. But there was still room to criticize the
self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports:

Last Friday, ESPN announced it was chopping this proud pinky off
its ham hand, only a few months after declaring its commitment to
Grantland despite having just fired Simmons. Without its
beneficiary and editor-in-chief, ESPN had no need for an
entertaining and prestigious niche that made little or no money
... Earlier last week, ESPN had laid off more than 300
employees. It was facing an annual $1.4 billion bill for NBA
rights alone. Perhaps that made it too hard to justify
maintaining its class act.

Lipsyte goes on to criticize what ESPN has become:

On a daily basis, ESPN’s main energy seems directed toward
cranking out trade rumors and coaching change speculation to keep
fans engaged, while its top broadcasters engage in squabbling
packaged as debate ... Perhaps it’s simply naïve to expect a
network that actually owns bowl games, has entire channels
devoted to major college sports conferences, and runs a revolving
door for sports figures who want to try their voice at
broadcasting, also maintain a reliable journalistic presence.

This has been the focus of much of the criticism of ESPN's
decisions to shut down Grantland. The network has been
attacked for jettisoning a strong journalistic presence
while at the same time keeping things like the highly criticized
"First Take," a sports debate show on ESPN2 with
partners-in-loudness, Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith.

However, the criticism may also be too simplistic.

A show like "First Take" represents such a small percentage of
everything that is aired on ESPN's family of networks and to
point only to that one show is to ignore a lot of the great
things ESPN does, such "Outside the Lines," "30 for 30," and
segments on "SportsCenter" that go beyond highlights.

The criticism also passes over all the excellent longform
stories written at ESPN.com and in ESPN the Magazine. Moreover,
many of Grantland's writers will continue write under those
banners.

It also ignores the simple fact that ESPN embraces debate on
shows like "First Take," because that's what people want.

ESPN executive editor John A. Walsh appeared on Bill Simmons'
podcast "The B.S. Report," back in 2012. Towards the end of the
interview, debate shows came up:

"What's really developed here is that [First Take] has hit a
nerve because it has developed a debate personality ... it's hit
ratings. And the reason is that these two personalities have
clicked ... I do think that there are places that debates can go
that they haven't gone so far. It will be something we should be
looking at."

At the end of the day, Grantland was shut down because it
wasn't making any money at a time when ESPN was being forced
to make cuts. It is fair to argue that ESPN should have continued
to subsidize the venture as a worthy cause. But it is unfair to
suggest ESPN got rid of the website just because they prefer to
pay people to scream at each other.